At least that is what everyone calls them in English! 🙂 While the “official” common name in English is “Common Morpho!” And in Spanish everyone is covered with “Mariposa Morfo Azul Común” or “Common Blue Morpho Butterfly!” 🙂 And “Common” is good because there are other species with blue tops! 🙂 See my photos from many different locations of this, the National Butterfly of Costa Rica, Common Morpho, Morpho helenor gallery. Four shots I liked from Punta Leona after this first introductory photo . . .
My one photo today through the very slow internet here is probably my favorite from the 6:15 am birding hike today.
Yellow-throated Toucan and Banana Flowers, Punta Leona, Costa Rica
The bird was eating banana plant flowers and interestingly at breakfast this morning a monkey got in and stole a banana of a man’s plate. 🙂
Tomorrow I will share one butterfly shot from the 9:30 am butterfly hike, during which I was not feeling great and will definitely slow down the rest of my time here! By 10 it is almost unbearably hot & humid and I was exhausted, coming back to the room for a nap and then this afternoon another nap. 🙂 I guess I’m an older man than I want to admit. 🙂
Tonight will be the hotel’s “special” Christmas Dinner. Tomorrow I will focus on the beach on Christmas Day with shore birds early morning, maybe a tidepool effort at low tide, and maybe a sunset reflection on the ocean, since the sun sets here now behind the land with the coast at an angle. 🙂 The better sunset place here is at Villa Coleta up the hills from Punta Leona.
To live in a green world, absorbing both the oxygen and the green spirit is one of the greatest blessings of living in Costa Rica. I randomly picked these photos as representative of this spirit, though many others could have represented it just as well . . .
In the recent days of many creatures eating the ripe palm berries, a Chachalaca or a squirrel broke one of the berry limbs off and it fell to the ground. With many more on the tree, he/she stayed in the tree and the bottom of the pecking order, Clay-colored Thrush, enjoyed the berries off the dropped limb. Plenty for everyone! 🙂 And as I watched this epicurean delight I suddenly realized that these birds have no teeth to chew their food and thus swallow the berry whole! 🙂 I’m enjoying these observations of nature! Simple life in a simple country.
Just one of the 245 species of reptiles in Costa Rica, an adult Black Spiny-tailed Iguana (my gallery link) climbing up the almost vertical concrete retainer-wall behind one of my gardens that is covered in vines, ground cover, ferns and whatever will cover plain ol’ concrete! (my jungle style!). Though I’ve had and photographed several juveniles in that garden, this is my first adult. 🙂 I guess he went on up the hill or driveway to K’s house and gardens! 🙂 Looking for food.
Black Spiny-tailed Iguana Adult climbing a vine-covered concrete wall., Atenas, Costa Rica.
That big bunch of green palm berries in my October 25 post turned red in November and multiple creatures began to eat with the Chachalacas and Boat-billed Flycatchers the most possessive. Below this introductory photo is a gallery showing the “pecking order” for these particular palm berries when I was out to see it. Note that I never saw the iguanas eating them (though they do eat the Nance Berries) but that doesn’t mean they didn’t partake, I just never got a photo. And they would possibly be some competition to the Chachalacas, though those birds stay in families or flocks outnumbering others, as well as being the largest. 🙂
In November this attractive leaf just popped up in my garden as what I figured was a “weed,” and thus I pulled it up, after photographing with my cell phone, and threw it away. Then I ran this leaf photo through iNaturalist and discovered that it is (was) a Marigold Pepper, Piper marginatum (iNaturallist link). Just another one of the many nature surprises I keep finding in my garden and all over Costa Rica! 🙂 What I read about this is that there are no “peppers” or fruit, but rather people use the leaves for seasoning and extracting a flavorful oil. Hmmmm, maybe I should have kept this “weed!” 🙂
Marigold Pepper Leaf, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
This Rufous-backed Wren (my gallery link) stopped in one of my Nance Trees, not for a berry (wrong time of year) but for an insect snack out of the little Air Plant growing on the tree. 🙂
Rufous-backed Wren stopping for a snack from the air plant, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.Rufous-backed Wren stopping for a snack from the air plant, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.
Thanks to neighbor & friend Judith LaBelle for finding these fungi on a fence post across the street from my house by the cow pasture just yesterday!
I have submitted both fungi to iNaturalist where I will hopefully get an identification soon. The genus and family identifications I’m using on the photos are from the AI on iNaturalist and I’m glad the AI doesn’t force an identification but accepts a broader genus or even broader family when not certain. Google Lens just keeps going with possible IDs, though in their first paragraph on the Shelf Fungus (Bracket Fungus) did agree that is is most likely in the Hexagonia Genus as iNat says; while on what iNaturalist calls mushrooms in Family Hypoxylaceae, they got more specific with a species name that I will learn later if an expert on iNaturalist agrees: Lens called them “Afred’s Cakes” or “Cramp Balls” (2 common names) and the species name “Daldivia concentrica.” All are fungi! 🙂
A Shelf Fungi in Genus Hexagonia, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa RicaA Mushroom Type Fungi in Family Hypoxylaceae, or possibly the species Daldivia concentrica (per Lens), Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.Continue reading “Fence Post Fungi”
A tiny little creature who stays close to the ground and on ground cover flowers like this. Not my first sighting, but first one this year. Formerly called Tulcis Crescent; see more photos in the Gallery: Pale-banded Crescent, Anthanassa tulcis.
Pale-banded Crescent, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
